Dependence of a crack growth path on the elastic moduli of an anisotropic solid

One of the ways to increase the resistance of a structure to catastrophic fracture is to force a main line crack to deviate from its path. For this reason the influence of the elastic moduli of an anisotropic material on crack rotation are studied. In particular a linear elastic problem for a straight Mode I crack, located on a symmetry axis of an orthotropic plane is considered. The strength properties of the material are assumed to be isotropic. Several crack models are considered for studying the direction of a crack growth path. It is shown that a crack modeled as a thin, elongated, elliptical hole leads to more plausible results concerning crack rotation conditions than an ideal cut model. The maximal tensile stresses are taken as a crack growth criterion. It is shown that for a class of orthotropic materials a crack deviates from the straight path just after it starts to grow, even in the conditions of uniaxial normal tension. The problem of the stability of a straight crack path under Mode I loadings is also considered. This problem is reduced to the problem of the fracture direction determination for thin, elongated, elliptical cavities slightly inclined to the initial direction. The conditions of instability are obtained within the framework of the proposed approach. It is shown that for a class of orthotropic materials a straight crack path is unstable in the conditions of uniaxial normal tension. This class of materials is larger than the one for which a crack deviates from the straight crack path just after its start.